When it comes to classic cozy sim games, we all have our go-to comfort titles for when we just want to chill out without the pressure of grinding for the best gear or saving some virtual world from some virtual threat. These games are easy to pick up and play because they already nailed the perfect formula years ago.
Sim games are a big winner in this comfort gaming category. When it comes to sims, I often prefer going back to a golden oldie than some newer iteration, as I prefer classic cycles rather than something more modern that tries to break new ground and ultimately moves too far away from what made the genre so special in the first place. While I do enjoy newer Rollercoaster sims like Planet Coaster 2, I often find myself booting up my grainy little old Rollercoaster Tycoon from 1999.
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Back To School
Another classic and undisputed favourite of mine from the ‘90s is Theme Hospital, but it’s one of the few exceptions where I don’t need to play the OG version, and that’s thanks to Two Point Hospital. The Two Point Studios team includes multiple ex-Bullfrog Productions developers, such as Mark Webley and Gary Carr, and so unsurprisingly, its first title was a spiritual successor to Theme Hospital.
It had the benefit of improved graphics and added bells and whistles of a modern game, but the core loop was the same, and for that added authenticity, pretty much everything felt like a glow up of the original right down to the snarky receptionist voice over. It was so familiar that it easily replaced Theme Hospital as one of my favourite comfort games. I’ve never looked back.
But when you’ve nailed a classic formula like that, where do you go from there? It would be easy to continue launching similar tried and tested sim templates that are bound to be lapped up by fans. But that’s not the Two Point way. Known for its quirky humour and unique style, the team decided to challenge themselves by going off the beaten path and tackling something different, launching Two Point Campus in 2022.
Campus maintains the same sort of Aardman Animations-esque characters and humour we know and love while retaining its Two Point County setting, but this time you’re building and managing a whole university campus. The biggest difference here is that your customers—sorry, students—stick around. They’re not popping in, getting cured, and then rushing out the door after handing you a fat paycheck. The core gameplay loop is very different, suddenly you’re having to properly take care of all these people over a lengthy period of time, maintaining their happiness and needs alongside that of your employees.
Two Point Campus reviewed pretty well, and I definitely enjoyed it at launch. It was exciting having these weird and wonderful courses to offer students, such as Knight School that saw them jousting and sword fighting, or Gastronomy where they’d make giant delectable dishes. Additionally, the customisation was vastly improved, as it was only natural you’d want to fine tune the appearance of your school far more than you would with a hospital.
With hindsight, I think the novelty was the main appeal of Campus. After a while, I longed for that simpler gameplay loop of Hospital rather than pumping more hours into helping students who, frankly, irritated me. I didn’t even play all of Campus’ DLC because I had burned out and grown tired of it long before the final one launched.
While Campus isn’t a bad game by any stretch, it didn’t become the superior Two Point title. I believe Hospital retained its crown, even if the review scores were pretty much the same and would suggest otherwise. Maybe I’m just nostalgic for Hospital because of how much it fills that Theme Hospital void for me. But I think Two Point’s next game proves this isn’t just about nostalgia.
Making History
Two Point Studios decided to shake things up once again with the recent release of Two Point Museum, opting for a setting rarely utilised in sim games. The standout feature here are expeditions, where you send your employees off to far away destinations to discover new exhibits. There are varying factors to help with expeditions, and they might even encounter a dilemma you must solve, sort of like those old choose your own adventure books.
The biggest appeal to me was the collection side of things, as there are plenty of exhibits to find. Some are found in pieces — for example, you have to find different parts of a dinosaur skeleton before it’ll appear whole in your museum — and there’s a gacha element in that you never know what’s going to be in the crates your team brings back.
Two Point humour shines through with quirky exhibits on Ghostology with actual ghosts on display, or Botany where there are man-eating plants, but there are also entire aquarium exhibits. I can’t help but think (and hope) that these could be indicative of a potential sequel more focused on animal welfare, maybe even letting us be a Zoo Tycoon.
But how do I know I’m not just swept up in the novelty once more? Will all these wonderfully intriguing things still be just as wonderful months from now? I’m confident the answer is yes, and that’s because Two Point Studios nailed the most important aspect: it returned to a pure gameplay loop.
Customers come in, they want to be wowed by your exhibits, they pay you for the privilege, and then they leave. There’s no drawn out cycle like there was with Campus because of lengthy academic courses. The simplicity I love about Hospital is here, but it’s been well balanced with new features that lean into that central cycle rather than drawing away from it.
The collectible aspect meanwhile has me investing more time and energy into my museums before moving onto the next. But you don’t just move on and forget your past museums, wasting all those hours you spent crafting the perfect dinosaur-themed area or unleashing some ghoulish designs with a haunted house vibe. For the first time in the series, Two Point encourages you to return to past locations.
The more you play and unlock, that just means you have even more you can add to the museums you first visited, and by returning, you’ll have new objectives and things to learn and unlock there too. It’s a clever way to encourage replayability and move away from the standard of simply burning through levels in a linear fashion.
You have to applaud Two Point Studios for not resting on its laurels and instead choosing to experiment so that it can bring something new to its fans. While Campus hasn’t found its way into my roster of replayable comfort games, I’m certain Museum will. Maybe I’ll eat my Indiana Jones-style fedora months from now when Museum is dusty and untouched, but I doubt it. Two Point Studios have found the perfect way to improve upon a classic formula, and that’s no small feat. How do you improve upon something so seemingly perfect? In a museum, apparently.
Simulation
Strategy
Life Simulation
City Builder
- Released
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March 4, 2025
- ESRB
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Everyone // Mild Fantasy Violence, Comic Mischief
- Developer(s)
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Two Point Studios